BRAUER ON GERMAN “DEFEATISTS”

...“Thewar is more than just an episode in the development of
socialism: it leads (at least as a possibility) to a definite end of this
development” (176)....

...(The“story” of Marx, Engels, Bebel....)

...“Theoretical‘annihilation’ does not prevent ‘opportunism’ from
living merrily on and winning respect. As the masses flocking to the
socialist banner grow, so also, but to a much greater degree, grows their
desire with regard to the present, and there is no preventing them, in
their aspirations, from turning their eyes to the present-day state”
(179–80)....

...Preciselyin this (revolutionary) ideology, against which Bernstein
fought—“precisely in this ideology the European war plays a great part
as the prelude to the social revolution” (180).

(Thetrade unions grow wiser)

...“immediatelybefore the war there was also a formal approximation
between trade union socialism and ‘bourgeois’ social reform” (181).

“Thevolte-face of German Social-Democracy at the outbreak of the war,
seen in its purely external aspect, came as a sudden sharp break. Right up
to the eve of the war, the press carried exhortations,
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warnings and appeals in the old agitational jargon. Views were even
expressed which, by referring to what allegedly happened in France after
1870, sounded like eulogy of defeat. Then, however, a single day brought
about ... a turn which could not be more complete. The official
explanations do not even remotely justify it. As everyone knows—and there
is no need therefore to dwell on this—they can be easily refuted by
previous official statements” (181).

...(Thesocialist masses, we are told, came into contact with the
“full” reality of life)....

...“Thefar-seeing socialists, especially from the revisionist camp”
(182) ... long ago pointed out the danger of such an [old-socialist]
education of the people....

...(eulogyof patriotism)....

...“Now,at last, the reformists can hope to find a strong,
impregnable basis for the new socialist and Social-Democratic programme
they have so ardently desired” (183)....

...“Ifone wanted to describe briefly the practical success of
revisionist activity, one would have to say that it has shattered faith in
Marxism, both among
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the leaders and the upper stratum of practical organisers, and that, in
default of an adequate substitute, they have made tactics their
‘credo’” (184).

[[BOX-ENDS:
and in general (188) let us first have the opinion of those who will come
back from the trenches.
]]

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N.B. Report of Swiss Factory and Mining Inspectors on Their Work in
1912 and 1913—Aarau, 1914 (265 pp., 3 marks).